Each great section had its own north and south divisions, designated as Northeastern, Southeastern, Northern Interior, Southern Interior, Northwest, and Southwest. In effect, DeBow’s system was a sweeping new geographic arrangement that restated the three major drainage areas: (1) the Appalachian or Atlantic; (2) the Mississippi Valley or Central; and (3) the Pacific or Western, as combinations of entire States, or of entire States and territories.
In many respects, DeBow’s great sections and divisions anticipated the present arrangement of census regions and divisions (see Figure 6-1). The Northern Division of the Eastern Section is today’s Northeast Region, the Southern Division of the Eastern Section comprises the present South Atlantic Division, the Southern Interior corresponds largely to today’s East and West South Central Divisions, the Northern Interior resembles the Midwest Region, and the name Western Section still applies to much the same area now referred to as the West.
Other tables (and consequently maps) from the 1850 and 1860 censuses arranged the States differently than the 1850 compendium. Map A in Figure 6-4 depicts the arrangement of States into sections or groups according to geographical situation, production, climate, the pursuits of the inhabitants, and other prominent characteristics. Texas, the Central Slave States, and the Coast Planting States approximated the South. These three sections corresponded to DeBow’s Southeast and Southern Interior, excluding the District of Columbia, Delaware, and Maryland. Some aspects of the sections or groups presented a rather unusual arrangement; for instance, the Middle States of the Atlantic seaboard also included Ohio, and the designation Northwestern States (often including all the territories) appears to be somewhat lacking in geographic precision. On an overall basis, the arrangement probably proved less versatile than the five divisions of the 1860 census. It appeared only once in the 1850 publication, and was featured in one historical table in the 1860 summary volume.
